The San Francisco Immigrant Legal & Education Network mourns the tragic loss of lives in Binghamton, New York today. As a Network that represents and provides services to Latino, Asian, African, and Arab immigrants in the Bay Area, we remain committed to working across all racial and ethnic communities to ensure that immigrants are educated about their rights and have access to legal services.

Posted on 26 March 2009

http://missionlocal.org/2009/03/ice-101/

By STEVE SALDIVAR

On a recent Thursday evening, a new type of army began assembling in a nondescript Steuart Street conference room. The 24 men and women—most dressed in business attire—were to be part of a quick reaction force.

Their objective: set free the rising numbers of undocumented workers detained in federal immigration raids in neighborhoods like the Mission. These foot soldiers—all Bay Area lawyers by day—were about to learn their rules of engagement.

“You have to get to your client as soon as possible,” said Sin Yen Ling, an attorney who works closely with the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco

“There’s no policy. In many cases the law is still unwritten,” she said. “It’s balls to the wall.”
Ling is part of an effort lead by both by The Equal Justice Society and the San Francisco Immigrant Legal and Education Network, advocacy groups aimed at counseling new and settled immigrants, to develop and teach area lawyers to effectively counter the increase in immigration raids by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE.

Ling and Francisco Ugarte, a 5-year Mission District resident and immigration attorney for Dolores Street Community Services, have opened this crash course in immigration law to any interested lawyer with hopes of building a new Rapid Response Network- lawyers working pro bono for ICE detainees.

The two-hour boot camp was designed to give attorneys an introduction to navigating what can seem to be a bewildering bureaucracy of the federal immigration and detention system.

These training sessions come at a time when ICE activity is escalating. Last September, Fugitive Operations Teams arrested more than 1157, including 436 in northern California. 20 percent of those in custody had criminal histories and were in the country illegally, according to ICE.

Even so, Ugarte believes these tactics deliver a greater hit to the overall health of a community.
Detainees are so terrified, they forget they have rights, says Ugarte.

“You will get a phone call within seconds of an ICE raid,” the instructors said. “Or you will get an email with names, numbers and locations.”

The attorneys in attendance all received a slim black three-ring binder filled with the procedures and protocol of ICE raids, but Ugarte stressed that the handouts, and even their legal experience, would not be enough to counter the federal government’s efforts to detain and deport undocumented workers.

“You’re going to have to make split second calls,” said Ling, snapping her fingers for emphasis. “Sometimes you have to be diplomatic, sometimes it takes more than that with the officers.

The only rule to handling ICE Detainee cases, she said, is that there are no rules.
“There’s no policy. In many cases the law is still unwritten,” said the 36-year old. “You have to figure it out as you go along.”

On one wall hung a large photo of a wildfire. Another was adorned with a black and white photo of an immigrant woman holding her head, crying.

“An ICE raid, by definition, is when three or more are detained,” said Ugarte. “You have 24 hours to identify your client,” he continued. “If ICE wants to know your clients country of origin, your client might want to plead the fifth, but not always.”

“Always remember to have your BAR card with you when entering the Federal Building,” he said, referring to a lawyer’s identification card. These are just a few things attorneys were scratching in their notes as quickly as possible, rarely making eye contact with the two instructors.

“We don’t do raids,” says Virginia Kice, spokesperson for ICE.
“We do targeted enforcement actions. We conduct criminal investigations. It’s unfortunate some of these individuals mischaracterize our activities.”

For ICEs part, they provide detainees with a list of free legal services.    “If [Ugarte] is interested in getting on that list of free legal service that’s something we would entertain,” said Kyce.

Don’t be fooled, says Ugarte.

“Under federal regulation, ICE has a duty to advise people in custody that they have a right to an attorney. Everyone, technically, should be given a list of free legal service providers,” said the Mission District resident.

“That’s great, the problem is, there is no right to appointed counsel. There’s no guarantee that anyone is going to take on a detainee’s case. They’re not public defenders. You get one phone call to the agency and they may or may not take your case.”

Ugarte hopes attorneys will volunteer to be placed on The Rapid Response Network. Once an ICE raid has been reported by a community member or otherwise, the attorney will receive a phone call from Ugarte and it will be a race against time for the attorney to dash to their new client before ICE officials have a chance to interrogate them.

Ugarte was only a couple of miles away from his usual place of work, although it must have seemed like words away. Steuert Street is nothing like Valencia. When the meeting started late in the evening, the crosswalk was littered with sleek Jaguars, humming BMWs and a Lexus parked in front of a bar which was growing ever more crowded.

While the sounds of laughter and clanging glasses could be heard from the bars downstairs, upstairs nothing but pens rolling through paper.

“There are horrendous constitutional violations occurring everyday,” said Michael Flynn, who graduated from Golden Gate University last year and is currently an attorney with Talamantes Villegas Carrera. “It’s dividing up families, there’s a violation of human rights.”

“I remember seeing 20 people in jumpsuits,” said Flynn about his days as a student watching the courts. “They were all chained next to one another while the Judge spoke to them.”

“The Bay Area is being hit the hardest right now,” said Rhodora Derpo, a Daly City resident who has started her own firm, Immigrant Rights Advocate. Both Flynn and Derpo for their part are interested in joining the Rapid Response Network.
This is not the first training, Ugarte has held a few before and, although doesn’t clarify when exactly the idea of creating an army of attorneys occurred, it’s clear what started it.
“The genesis is the ICE raids,” said the CUNY graduate. “Mothers, fathers, sisters are getting deported. What are we going to do, sleep on this? In Immigration court they don’t give people a right to an attorney. We’re trying to respond.”

Both the San Francisco Immigrant Legal and Education Network and The Equal Justice Society, both started in 1990 as an advocacy group for immigrants.

For Ugarte’s part, he understands why many attorneys might shy away from such a critical issue facing many communities.

“It’s the unknown,” says Ugarte. “It’s the not knowing what to do. It’s a very complicated area of law. The stakes are extremely high. You are dealing with lives and with families.”

Ugarte, with rolled up sleeves, adjusts his blue collar shirt and, after a short but intense two hours, closed his black three-ring binder and dismissed the group. “This is not for the faint of heart.
“But it’s rewarding.”

Hispanic lawmakers, with the support of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), are in the throes of a nationwide campaign to pressure President Barack Obama to put immigration reform on the priority list.

“The president is silent,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who is leading a 19-city tour to build grass-roots support for comprehensive reform. “If the president doesn’t set it as part of his agenda, it won’t happen.”

Obama so far has barely mentioned immigration as he focuses on the faltering economy. Gutierrez and others in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus had urged Obama to call for comprehensive reform this year in his joint address to Congress last month, to no avail.

Gutierrez and other Hispanic Members want Obama to first use his executive authority to stop raids and deportation of immigrants, which they say splits up families. Then, they want him to push hard for comprehensive legislation.

“We are going to go from city to city and church to church until the voices of our community are heard by the president,” Gutierrez said.

Obama is in a difficult political position. He won the election in part because of unprecedented support from Hispanic voters who heard his promise to fight for immigration reform, yet he also faces the difficult calculus of pushing to legalize illegal workers at a time when millions of Americans are losing their jobs.

Yet Hispanic lawmakers and many Congressional Democrats say they don’t think the issue can wait. After a series of attempts under former President George W. Bush’s administration, lawmakers in both parties were unsuccessful in reaching agreement on a way forward on the politically volatile issue.

Gutierrez enlisted some high-profile Members on his national tour – including the Speaker at a stop on March 7 in San Francisco.

Pelosi spoke passionately about the need for comprehensive immigration reform soon and urged an end to enforcement raids that fracture families, calling the policy “un-American.”

“Who in our country would not want to change a policy of kicking in doors in the middle of the night and sending a parent away from their families?” Pelosi asked. “It must be stopped. It must be stopped. … The raids must end. The raids must end.”

However, a House Democratic leadership aide noted that the Speaker did not set a timetable for action and said leadership will coordinate the timing with the White House and the Senate. Democratic leaders in both chambers widely acknowledge the issue must be addressed at some point but have not committed to a timeline.

Nonetheless, Pelosi’s endorsement of the goals of Hispanic lawmakers has buoyed fresh calls for legislation.

“I saw a much more human side of Nancy Pelosi,” Gutierrez said. “We hope the rest of America responds as she did that day.”

Gutierrez’s campaign attempts to humanize immigration by featuring children who are U.S. citizens bereft of their illegal immigrant parents. The events are being held in large churches, an attempt to bring a Biblical and moral dimension to the fight, Gutierrez said.

The attendees sign petitions to Obama, which will be presented to him when Hispanic lawmakers meet with the president, Gutierrez said.

“Look, you have it within your power to stop these separations of families. You stated it as a goal and you made a commitment,” Gutierrez said of Obama. “He made it to me when I endorsed him. And we want him to keep his promise. It’s as simple as that.”

Hispanics understand that Obama needs to focus first on the economy but don’t want to be told to wait another year for action, Gutierrez said.

“How long do we wait? … The families can’t wait,” he said. “Explain that to the three 9-year-olds in Providence, R.I., who testified that they lost their dads. Sorry, you’re just going to have to grow up without a father?”

Hispanic Members have already met with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who agreed to review the department’s policies on raids that round up illegal workers after a raid in Bellingham, Wash.

“I’m tired of the policy where we wanted to tell the American people, ‘You’re safer because we got the Windex-wielding woman who works at Wal-Mart at 1 a.m.,’” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez said enforcement efforts should be redirected to fighting gangs, smugglers and other criminals, instead of immigrant workers.

White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said Friday that Obama is still committed to fixing the broken immigration system.

“The president is serious about immigration reform. He said we will start the debate this year, and this continues to be the plan,” Shapiro said. “Anytime a raid like the recent one in Washington state happens, it is a reminder of how much work we need to do to address a broken immigration system.”

Obama said last week that he has started to talk about the prospects of moving forward with legislation.

“But obviously we’ve got a lot on our plate right now,” the president said. “And so what we can do administratively, that’s where we’re going to start.”

A House Republican aide close to the issue said the GOP does not expect Obama to push hard this year given the state of the economy, saying: “The Obama team is smart, and they are looking at this and realizing this is a very tough sell.”

“How do you make the argument when you have 7 million illegal immigrants in the workforce and you have 12.5 million Americans out of work?” the aide asked.

But Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a group backing legalization of illegal immigrants, said his sense is that the Obama White House would like to do something as early as this fall, but the timing will depend on everything from the state of the economy to Obama’s poll ratings to the status of the rest of his agenda.

“I don’t think they’ll have a moment of truth discussion until this summer,” he said.

Sharry said the high unemployment rate would have an impact, though, with likely less emphasis in the legislation on adding new work visas.

And while opponents will surely argue that illegal immigrants are taking jobs from Americans, supporters will argue that ending the shadow economy would level the playing field among employers and add to tax revenues, Sharry said.

The raids on homes around the country were billed as carefully planned hunts for dangerous immigrant fugitives, and given catchy names like Operation Return to Sender.

And they garnered bigger increases in money and staff from Congress than any other program run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even as complaints grew that teams of armed agents were entering homes indiscriminately.

But in fact, beginning in 2006, the program was no longer what was being advertised. Federal immigration officials had repeatedly told Congress that among more than half a million immigrants with outstanding deportation orders, they would concentrate on rounding up the most threatening — criminals and terrorism suspects.

Instead, newly available documents show, the agency changed the rules, and the program increasingly went after easier targets. A vast majority of those arrested had no criminal record, and many had no deportation orders against them, either.

Internal directives by immigration officials in 2006 raised arrest quotas for each team in the National Fugitive Operations Program, eliminated a requirement that 75 percent of those arrested be criminals, and then allowed the teams to include nonfugitives in their count.

In the next year, fugitives with criminal records dropped to 9 percent of those arrested, and nonfugitives picked up by chance — without a deportation order — rose to 40 percent. Many were sent to detention centers far from their homes, and deported.

The impact of the internal directives, obtained by a professor and students at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law through a Freedom of Information lawsuit and shared with The New York Times, shows the power of administrative memos to significantly alter immigration enforcement policy without any legislative change.

The memos also help explain the pattern of arrests documented in a report, criticizing the fugitive operations program, to be released on Wednesday by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington.

Analyzing more than five years of arrest data supplied to the institute last year by Julie Myers, who was then chief of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the report found that over all, as the program spent a total of $625 million, nearly three-quarters of the 96,000 people it apprehended had no criminal convictions.

Without consulting Congress, the report concluded, the program shifted to picking up “the easiest targets, not the most dangerous fugitives.”

It noted, however, that the most recent figures available indicate an increase in arrests of those with a criminal background last year, though it was unclear whether that resulted from a policy change.

The increased public attention comes as the new secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, has ordered a review of the fugitive teams operation, which was set up in 2002 to find and deport noncitizens with outstanding orders of deportation, then rapidly expanded after 2003 with the mission of focusing on the most dangerous criminals.

Peter L. Markowitz, who teaches immigration law at Cardozo and directs its immigration legal clinic, said the memos obtained in its lawsuit reflected the Bush administration’s effort to appear tough on immigration enforcement during the unsuccessful push to pass comprehensive immigration legislation in 2006, and amid rising anger over illegal immigration.

“It looks like what happened here is that the law enforcement strategy was hijacked by the political agenda of the administration,” he said.

Kelly A. Nantel, a spokeswoman for the immigration agency, defended the program. “For the first time in history, we continue to reduce the number of immigration fugitive cases,” she said, noting that the number of noncitizens at large with outstanding deportation orders, which peaked at 634,000 in the 2007 fiscal year, is now down to about 554,000. “These results speak for themselves and they are consistent with Congress’s mandate: locate and remove immigration absconders.”

Ms. Nantel said the number of fugitives with criminal backgrounds arrested in the 2008 fiscal year rose to 5,652, or 16 percent of 34,000 arrests, and nonfugitives fell to 8,062, or 23 percent.

Many Americans have welcomed roundups of what the agency calls “ordinary status violators” — noncitizens who have no outstanding order of deportation, but are suspected of being in the country unlawfully, either because they overstayed a visa or entered without one.

But Michael Wishnie, one of the authors of the report, who teaches law at Yale, said that random arrests of low-level violators in residential raids not only raised a new set of legal and humanitarian issues, including allegations of entering private homes without warrants or consent and separating children from their caretakers, but was “dramatically different from how ICE has sold this program to Congress.”

“If we just want to arrest undocumented people,” he said, “we can do it much more cheaply.”

Congressional financing for the fugitive operations program rose to $218 million in the 2008 fiscal year, from $9 million in 2003, as the number of seven-member teams multiplied to 104 from 8.

In Congressional briefings and public statements since 2003, agency officials have repeatedly said that given the vast number of immigrants with outstanding deportation orders, the program will focus its resources on the roughly 20 percent with a criminal background.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo dated Jan. 22, 2004, underscored that commitment: “Effective immediately, no less than 75 percent of all fugitive operations targets will be those classified as criminal aliens” — noncitizens with a criminal record as well as an order of deportation. It added that “collateral apprehensions” — immigration violators encountered by chance during an operation — would not be counted in that percentage.

But on Jan. 31, 2006, a new memo changed the rules. The directive, from John P. Torres, acting director of the agency, raised each team’s “target goal” to 1,000 a year, from 125.

And it removed the requirement that at least 75 percent of those sought out for arrest be criminals. Instead, it told the teams to prioritize cases according to the threat posed by the fugitive, with noncriminals in the lowest of five categories. And it repeated that “collateral apprehensions will not count” toward the 1,000 arrest quota.

But that standard, too, was dropped nine months later. A new memo from Mr. Torres said “nonfugitive arrests may now be included” to reach the required 1,000 arrests. On average, however, it said at least half of those arrested by each team should be fugitives. It also promised to “ensure the maximum availability of detention space for fugitive arrest operations.”

One result was an increase in noncriminals held in immigration detention. Another, the Migration Policy Institute report concluded, was that the percentage of criminal fugitives arrested plummeted, to 9 percent in the year that ended Sept. 30, 2007, from 39 percent in the 2004 fiscal year.

That same year, 15,646, or 51 percent of those arrested, had an outstanding deportation order, but no criminal record, and 12,084, or 40 percent, were termed “ordinary status violators” who did not fit any of the program’s priority categories.

The report said the program relied on a database riddled with errors, and that many deportation orders were issued without the subject in court, sometimes because of faulty addresses.

The looser rules were reflected in sweeps like one conducted in New Haven in June 2007. During the raid, lawyers at Yale’s immigration law center said, agents who found no one home at an address specified in a deportation order simply knocked on other doors until one opened, pushed their way in, and arrested residents who acknowledged that they lacked legal status.

Of the 32 arrested and scattered to jails around New England, only 5 had outstanding deportation orders, and only 1 or 2 had criminal records.

Link to original article: Targets of Immigrant Raids Shifted

Most San Franciscans agree that the Bush administration leaves a legacy of failed and dysfunctional policies–among the most notable, a broken immigration system. The Bush immigration policy has relied almost solely on one approach: detention and deportation of alleged undocumented immigrants, who were apprehended (often along with lawful residents and even citizens) in violent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in neighborhoods all over our country. The raids have left broken families and fearful communities in their wake.

Here in San Francisco, we saw the consequences of this sad legacy when the two-decades old Sanctuary Ordinance and other progressive, well-reasoned policies began to unravel over the past year under the weight of eight years of Bush doctrines.

Under the threat of prosecution by the U.S. Attorney General for the Northern District of California Joseph Russoniello, San Francisco quickly rescinded its longstanding policy toward undocumented youth in the juvenile system and replaced it with one that deprives youth of due process, resulting in some 100 youths being referred by San Francisco officials to ICE thus far. The policy of brute enforcement overcame longstanding local policies that recognized the public safety benefits and sheer good sense of building an inclusive community and the due process rights of every human being. The deportation of immigrant youth, coupled with raids in homes, near schools, and in workplaces, made fear a common emotion among immigrants, here in our city and elsewhere.

With President Barack Obama leading a new administration, we have turned a page in our nation’s history. By asking us to let hope, not fear, guide us, he has challenged us to think differently about how to best solve our problems. Problems are not solved when people are afraid, when they aren’t sure how they are going to earn a living or keep their children safe. Fear does not inspire compassion or compromise, and certainly does not inspire trust. In contrast, hope is an undeniably better inspiration for problem solving, and has always been a driving force in the immigrant community. Immigrants are part of our communities and they are part of many of our families. If we are going to solve our problems, and create just and humane policies toward immigrants, policies that we can be proud of, we are going to have to let hope lead us there.

Today, a coalition of groups that has been working with San Francisco’s supervisors, community leaders, social service providers, and faith groups is gathering at City Hall to call for a halt to the raids and for support of fair and humane immigration reform. We will be joining our voices with thousands of others across California and across our country who found hope in the words of our new President Barack Obama during his inauguration speech:

“We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.”

These are deeply inspiring words of hope to America’s immigrants, and they call on us to recognize our common humanity and to work together fearlessly to address our most complex problems in the hardest of times. Today, as we hold a vigil in front of City Hall in support of fair and humane immigration policies, we have taken the first steps in this new era towards hope for our country and for our city, and for those who wish to find and build their dreams here with us.

New American Media, Commentary , Evelyn Sanchez and Angela Chan:

Immigration parents face many challenges when trying to build a new life in a new country, but few are as daunting as when a parent cannot be involved in their child’s education. For example, LEP parents worry about their children’s grades, but may not be able to understand the report cards if they are only in English. They want to get involved in the school activities, but may not be able to read the notices. Many immigrant parents face these significant barriers and feel frustrated and/or lost.

VVPA parent leaders help other parents overcome this challenge by teaching them about their rights and how to advocate for themselves at school sites. They learn how to request translation services at meetings and ensure that the concerns of LEP Chinese-speaking parents are heard. VVPA memebers develop advocacy and leadership skills needed to become community leaders such as public speaking and one-to-one relationship building. Over time these parent leaders are able to share their skills by mentoring and supporting a new group of leaders through VVPA’s annual spring training and other community workshops throughout the year.

For the past several years, VVPA parent leaders have actively participated in campaigns geared towards increasing opportunities for meaningful LEP parent involvement and educational equity for all students. For example, in 2006, VVPA members successfully secured additional funds to expand language services in San Francisco public schools by presenting data and parent testimonies to illustrate the tremendous need. This past year, VVPA conducted community presentations and provided public statements in support of a local ballot initiative that would increase well-trained teachers at public schools in San Francisco. Currently, the group is focused on the school district’s new strategic plan, which will help strengthen the academic goals at each school site and guarantee that all students will have equal access to quality and meaningful education. VVPA’s goal is to ensure that LEP parents will have the opportunity to voice their opinions during this process.

VVPA parents continue to advocate for change because they believe in the value of active community engagement and have seen how their collective efforts can improve language access for LEP parents. As VVPA moves forward, parents will identify other issue areas to work on and know that they can be part of enriching the lives of all LEP parents in the City.

Written by Michelle Yeung, Community Advocate at Chinese for Affirmative Action

In the media and on the blogs, the sobering message from Washington have been interpreted differently. Are the pessimistic messages intended merely to create some tactical flexibility? Or are the messages intended to prepare us for disappointment? For those of us working in the grassroots, we cannot afford to ‘wait and see.’ Our best approach is to ignore the calls to lower or postpone expectations. Our task is to keep up the momentum and the community’s hope for change.

The need for change on a national level is particularly urgent for us given the deteriorating conditions for immigrants here in San Francisco and the Bay Area. Local media outlets such as the SF Chronicle, faced with declining audiences, appear to have resurrected their tradition of yellow journalism, exaggerating the connection between immigration and violent crime. The Chronicle’s stories appear directed towards discrediting the City’s Sanctuary Ordinance and the Municipal ID program. Adding injury to insult, for the first time in recent memory in San Francisco, we are experience systematic workplace raids, immigrant profiling by police and other practices intended to intimidate immigrant communities. To effectively combat the negative media and these local practices we must combine our active involvement in the national debate with efforts to change the political climate city by city, county by county to bring about comprehensive immigration reform.

The opportunities for national change created by the most recent election are not likely to survive for long. Ever since the anti-immigrant Proposition 187 carried Governor Pete Wilson to a landslide victory fourteen years ago, bashing undocumented immigrants has been a popular and effective campaign device. Only McCain’s nomination shifted the debate away from immigration. McCain’s past support for moderate reforms meant the campaign could not easily be case in terms of a choice between xenophobia and immigrant virtues. As a result, for the first time in over a decade, immigrants were not the most vilified and scapegoated group in a national campaign.

Given Obama’s extraordinary victory and the tone of the past national elections, this coming Congressional term should therefore be our best chance yet for a humane reform of immigration laws. The elements of a workable reform bill already exists in bills that have been stranded in Congress for several years.

Why then, with solid Democratic majorities, should it be prudent to delay reform an additional year? Midterm elections, as 2010 will be, are often a vulnerable moment for any incumbent party. In two years, incumbent Obama’s mandate for change will be less clear. And with McCain off the ticket, Republican candidates can return to blaming immigrants for the economy, crime, traffic jams, and every other grievance large or small. Under such circumstances, many Democratic incumbents are likely to move away from controversy. Under these conditions, 2010 will be a much more difficult year to win any meaningful immigration legislation. Hence the logic of delay makes no sense. Immigration reform will not grow less controversial as time passes. Nor will we get closer to a ‘bipartisan’ consensus because we wade through another election cycle. Rather, the controversy will intensify the longer this issue remains unresolved. So why not 2009?

Democrats in Congress are understandably nervous. They have not enjoyed a substantial majority position for years and they do not want to overplay their hand. Hopefully they will lose their present skittishness on the immigration issue when they realize the dangers of a backlash are overstated. Much as the fears of nominating an African American for president were proven to be misplaced, the fears of creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants are also overblown. National polls show a majority of Americans support Congress providing relief for undocumented immigrants. Hence, once it is passed, as enlightened immigration bill will be celebrated and not condemned – much as on the night of the elections even some of the most scurrilous of media commentators and Republicans applauded Obama’s victory.

The bottom line is, when 12 million undocumented immigrants are provided a pathway to citizenship and to the ballot, those newly emancipated Americans can no longer be treated as the silent punching bag for yellow journalists and right wing politicians. Instead the media and politicians will be forced to reckon with immigrants as vocal participants, future voters, and people who will forever remember how they were treated or mistreated in this critical period.

But we have a long ways to go to get the reform we need. To help start the process on the right foot, immigrant rights organizations on the East Coast are mobilizing to march on Washington the day after Obama’s inauguration. While plans have yet to crystallize here, events will also be planned on the West Coast. Stay tuned…

Written by Eric Quezada and Gen Fujioka

Eric Quezada is the Executive Director of Dolores Street Community Services, and is on the steering committee for the San Francisco Immigrant Legal & Education Network. Gen Fujioka is a long time community lawyer in San Francisco.

Featured on Beyond Chron

Two of the African Immigrant & Refugee Resource Center’s health interns shared a booth with the Ethiopian Cultural Institute of San Jose to conduct outreach for survey participants. The team talked with members of the Ethiopian Nurses Association, who are also doing their own health survey and are working to collaborate on data analysis.

The African Immigrant & Refugee Resource Center has carried out similar outreach work for the past six months among the diverse San Franciscan and East Bay African immigrant communities. The Center’s big community outreach kicked-off on April 26, 2008, in partnership with the Department of Public Health Newcomer Program and the Arab Resource & Organizing Center – another San Francisco Immigrant Legal & Education Network member. The Health Legal Forum took place at the Center’s office in San Francisco’s Western Addition, as an opportunity to discuss immigrants’ concerns on eligibility and legal status when accessing health services. Interns and staff from all agencies provided interpretation services in French, Arabic, Tigrinya, and Amharic to participants from Togo, the Ivory Coast, Morocco, Ethiopia, and Eritrea.

The event included a Know Your Rights skit showing participants what to do during an immigration raid. Speakers discussed immigrant health insurance programs, legal status concerns, health services, and the myths of becoming a public charge. Staff attorney for the Arab Resource & Organizing Center, Christine Stouffer, provided individual legal counseling at the end of the event to several participants.

The African Immigrant & Refugee Resource Center will continue through the year to work closely with African institutions throughout the Bay Area. More educational workshops are being planned with community leaders to examine the health concerns many may have. Many African immigrants are looking to service providers, like the AIRRC, to provide information on issues such as health insurance for children and adults, child education, childcare services, immigrant friendly healthcare facilities and legal rights on different benefits.

The African Immigrant & Refugee Resource Center hopes the continual diverse participation in these projects will further the voice of immigrants and those concerned with improved health care. Let us continue this path towards community empowerment and health services for all!

Story written by Joe Sciarrillo of the African Immigrant & Refugee Resource Center.

Judge finds cause for ICE raid hearings

By Mary E. O’Leary, Register Topics Editor

In 2006, Benyounes arrived from Morocco to San Francisco on the Diversity Visa Lottery with his wife and two boys. Soon after, Benyounes came to the African Immigrant & Refugee Resource Center seeking assistance with employment and housing. More importantly, he was looking to connect with friends to guide and support him in navigating his new home. The obstacles began to mount when his family could no longer comfortably stay at his sister-in-law’s house after the first month. Tempers flared between his relatives, sparked by conflicting expectations on living arrangements, and personal differences. The complex social dynamics of living in an unfamiliar city with new expectations were just his first barriers. He left with his two children to go back to Rabat, Morocco in February of 2007, so they could live in a more stable environment with his sister. Shortly splitting from his wife, in the Bay Area, he returned alone to San Francisco a few weeks later. Although a part of him seemed to remain in Morocco, he began a new journey as a single man in San Francisco.

After returning from Morocco, having spent thousands of dollars on plane tickets, Benyounes’s first steps were to apply for a Social Security card, a California ID, and start everything short of a new life. He began coming to the African Immigrant & Refugee Resource Center in March of 2007 and explained to the caseworkers his frustration in finding affordable housing and livable paying jobs that do not require high-levels of English. The Center provided listings of affordable housing and signed him up for several housing wait-lits. Instead, he preferred to avoid the backlog of public housing and found a more comfortable, personal setting at a Tenderloin apartment with an Algerian friend. The Center referred him to a technological training at Cartridge World, but no related jobs panned out.

One of this biggest obstacles was navigating through the red tape and bureaucratic barriers to employment, housing, and qualifying for certain medical benefits as a legal permanent resident. Yet, he was gaining a familiarity with such obstacles after having gone through the rough fourteen month process of the Diversity Visa Lottery. The United States Department grants roughly 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States through this lottery. Most participants come from Asia and Africa, and must meet specific educational or occupational requirements. Having taught high school chemistry and physics for years, Benoyoune met the criteria and in 2006 was able to apply with his wife and two children, allowing them to work and reside in the U.S. as legal permanent residents. For the 2008 Diversity Visa Lottery (which refers to the lottery that took place in the fall of 2006, and allows visa recipients to enter the U.S. in 2008), more than 10 million individuals participated. Benyounes constantly reminds himself that his family has already overcome the odds in coming to the U.S.

While attending prayer services at the Attawhid mosque on Sutter and Polk in the Tenderloin, Benyounes met Abdel Mokrani, the Volare Pizzeria manager. He recalls their first encounter in 2007, “I was looking for any work – part time. Abdel needed someone to open and to start the oven and clean up. I made fish one day for him – he found out I was a good chef so he pushed me to try cooking pizza. He even gave me his secrets (for sauce and pasta) and I improved them because I’m a chemist.” Together, Benyounes and Abdel altered and improved their recipes as well as the restaurant’s interior and exterior design.

Benyounes reflects in French on the unexpected skills he has picked up, “Je ne savais rien,” meaning that he had no experience in managing a restaurant whatsoever, crediting Islam and his spirituality for this. “You must have, above all, faith,” explaining that patience is one of its main virtues. Patience, he attests, is the first thing that helped him when it seemed all solutions and support were gone as a newly arrived immigrant in the U.S.

Volare Pizzeria stands out as one of the many city hot spots that is run and staffed by African immigrants. Most staff are North Africans or maghreb, which makes it a resource for news, celebrations and connections among San Francisco’s maghreb community. In fact, the number of Africans in San Francisco still remains “countless” and unknown because there is little conclusive census data – only extensive statistics on the number of residents who consider themselves “Black.” In fact, several staff of Volare Pizzeria joined the San Francisco Immigrant Legal & Education Network on APril 16, 2008, at City Hall to meet with Supervisors to explain the language and social service needs of the growing African population.

“I need to learn English, to help my position as manager,” Benyounes states just after one month and a half on the job. Often times working along at the pizzeria in the late nights, managing the cashier and kitchen, he would find time to practice his English. “I study English when it’s slow…I practice English with customers. I understand a little but it’d hard.” He notes that picking up on the slang of customers and nearby residents has been the hardest part of the language. With his eyes bright and wide, as if revealing a piece of hidden wisdom, he exclaims, “I noticed that Americans are really polite…that really makes me happy. When they know I don’t understand [what they're saying], they try to help me.”

Benyounes insisted “on peut jamais rester sans faire ren, il y a toujours travail” – there’s always more to do at work. “I never thought I’d be giving so much of my life to pizza!” Though he has moved on to look for higher-level jobs, his eyes squint with melancholy, speaking with gratitude about the support he has received at Volare Pizzeria and the African Immigrant & Refugee Resource CEnter. “I can’t tell you how much this has done for me. They are some of my only friends (in the U.S.). They’re my soutien (support).”

This article is a series of stories highlighting the different experiences of immigrants in San Francisco. Story written by Joe Sciarrillo of the African Immigrant & Refugee Resource Center.